The Last Supper has come to represent an image in a recent movie of a conspiracy of the church to hide Jesus’ wife and children. It has resulted in arguments between churches over how often you take it. I have often heard discussions about the mundane repetition that is not entertaining…in other words, it is boring. I am always surprised by these points of view. The Lord’s Supper is a historical fact that has been an integral part of worship since the early church. In today’s world of entertaining worship, it would be sacrilege not to have a praise team perform. However, to follow Jesus’ command to eat the bread and drink the cup of the new covenant is boring. How things have been turned upside down and our forms of worship ignores a command of Jesus to replace it with our worship desires. To ignore the Last Supper is to refuse to stand in the presence of mystery and wonder. It is disdain on the body of Christ. Have we forgotten its foundational message of what God has done to correct our broken relationship with Him and our neighbor?
The act of eating together paved the way for Jesus’ fellowship with his disciples, the crowds, and the outcasts in Galilee on various occasions and Luke emphasizes the meal scenes of Jesus’ ministry. Instituted at the time of the Passover meal, the Lord’s Supper also embraces and fulfills the celebration of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we declare that the Lord whom we worship is also the God committed to the deliverance of His people today. In the early church, the Lord’s Supper was observed in connection with a fellowship meal. The risen Lord becomes known to the early disciples in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:30-31). The early Christians broke bread at home (Acts 2:46), they gathered on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7), and problems arose when the meal did not express the oneness and fellowship of the church (1 Cor. 11:17-22). The supper, therefore, relates the community of believers physically and spiritually to the Lord, who laid down his life that we might live. It is a commemoration of the life and death of Jesus, a celebration of his real and spiritual presence now, and an affirmation of the hope that we shall eat and drink with him in the kingdom of God. I look forward to this Sunday, the next Sunday, and the next Sunday to take the Lord’s Supper and remember my Lord’s death until He comes again. I do not find this mundane, nor do I find the banquet in heaven something that I choose not to participate in. Each opportunity to take the bread and drink the cup is an opportunity to live the gospel and experience the grace of God that invites me to salvation.